Coffee Club continues without oldest member

Informal group gathers daily to talk about history, lives

Coffee Club members (pictured clockwise from left) Marty Bowers, John "Jack" Tritt, Buddy Fogle, Joe Volz, David Denton, Chipper Hoff and Sam Maples gathered on Monday morning at the Frederick Coffee Company in Frederick for their almost daily meeting.

Tom Chase was the only person sitting at a table marked reserved' until Ron Young, former mayor of Frederick, walked inside the Frederick Coffee Company and took a seat across from him in the empty coffeehouse.

The men were the only members of the Frederick Coffee Club who scraped fresh ice and snow from their cars Jan. 28 to keep a long-standing appointment that their fathers' generation began in a North Market Street lunch counter in 1953.

Many of the Frederick Coffee Club members are Frederick's "old guard," the men who once held the keys to the city — its lawyers, bankers, educators and businessmen — and who intimately know the city's history, block by block.

They know the city because they've lived it. Most members have been raised on its streets and still call Frederick home. They meet six days per week to talk about anything and to reminisce and socialize over cups of coffee at the Frederick Coffee Company on East Street.

The Village, the greasy spoon Patrick Street diner that had sheltered the club since its beginning, closed in 2007, forcing the group's move to the city's east side. The club numbers about 30 members, ranging in age from late 30s to 90. But never that many come at one time. There are no attendance records, rules or requirements to belonging. Simply come inside and take a seat at the table.

A large framed picture of the group's founder, Frederick's former police chief Charlie Main, hangs in a corner above their wooden table at the Frederick Coffee Company. Two small black-and-white photos of Jack Molesworth and Fred Price, former members who are now deceased, are tucked into the corners of the picture frame.

End of an era'

The men now have one more photo to add to that frame. Robert McCardell, the club's oldest member, died Jan. 26 at Frederick Memorial Hospital. He was 95 years old.

Born June 8, 1913, McCardell, a lifelong bachelor, had lived his entire life in his family's home on Rockwell Terrace near Baker Park.

He was a regular at the Frederick Coffee Club until about a week before his death, Young said, and always sat in the chair across from him, with a clear view of the action on East and Church streets. Chase, a retired Frederick Police lieutenant, occupied his chair that day.

"I really think the coffee club was one of the highlights of his life," Young said.

McCardell, a shy, quiet bank examiner whom Chase had known since childhood, had a sharp mind, a unique smile and a love for the game of tennis.

If someone was telling a story about days gone by, McCardell was the ultimate authority. "Bob was the encyclopedia," Chase said. "He would answer the question or confirm the story."

Karlys Kline, one of the club's female members, said in a telephone interview that for the last six years, she would take McCardell out for dinner on his birthday.

"Bob always wanted to go to The Tasting Room and he would always have a whiskey sour — just one," Kline said.

McCardell was "the end of an era" and a "gentleman at heart," Kline said, and on most occasions he would still insist on opening her car door. He was also philanthropic, donating money to Hood College and Frederick Memorial Hospital, Kline noted. McCardell and his brother, Adrian McCardell Jr., had also set up a scholarship fund through The Community Foundation of Frederick County Inc., for students attending Hood College and Washington and Lee University.

Chase and Young said they expected McCardell to bounce back from his latest hospital stay, like he always did. The man who continued to drive into his 90s and used e-mail suffered from kidney problems.

As a younger man, McCardell's career as a bank auditor required that he often travel across the country and away from his two brothers and sister, Claire McCardell, a world-famous fashion designer. Claire McCardell rose through the ranks of American fashion in the 1950s and appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1955, three years before she died from cancer.

We celebrate age'

A week after McCardell's death, the Frederick Coffee Club met as usual to begin another week over hot cups of coffee.

Soon the club will get ready to celebrate its members' February birthdays, said Jack Tritt, 72. "We celebrate age," he said good-naturedly.

The group marks birthdays with a coffee cake, or red velvet cake if it happens to be Betty Huffer's birthday. Huffer was the club's longtime waitress at The Village and is also a member.

As the club ages, the men said they have found camaraderie and friendship, sharing their lives over coffee.

David Denton, former superintendent of the Maryland School for the Deaf for 25 years, said there's been a growing recognition among the club of the importance of friendship and respect. Denton has been a coffee club member since 1975 and he knows that if he needs a ride home, a coffee club member will provide it.

"We're different but we're united in a sense of respect for our different-ness," Denton said, adding that the group's conversation runs the gamut from the everyday to the spiritual, political and ethical sides of life.

Jack Tritt, 72, joined the club in the late 1980s at Main's invitation and described the group's conversation topics as, "what was, what might have been, what is and what will be."

"Life is more than politics, more than our differences. It's more than what we deal with each day. I think it goes beyond the day to day issues," he said of the club.